Foreign forces that try to bully or oppress the Chinese people “will have their heads bashed bloody”, President Xi Jinping has said in his CCP centenary speech.
The Chinese people will never allow foreign forces to bully or oppress them, President Xi Jinping has said during a speech to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of China’s ruling Communist Party.
“Anyone who dares try to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of Steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people,” he said on Thursday, eliciting applause from the audience gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Xi made the comments in a televised address in which he said China would build up its military to safeguard its sovereignty, security and development, elevating it to world-class standards.
“We must accelerate the modernisation of national defence and the armed forces,” said Xi, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, which controls the country’s armed forces.
He also said China had achieved its centenary goal of building “a moderately prosperous society”.
The overarching theme of the party’s work during the past 100 years was to rejuvenate the nation, said Xi, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.
“The people of China are not only good at destroying the old world, they have also created a new world,” Xi said. “Only socialism can save China.”
Xi and the party are riding high as China recovers briskly from the COVID-19 outbreak and takes a more assertive stand on the global stage, although Beijing also faces criticism over its actions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and contends with a worsening demographic outlook that imperils long-term economic growth.
The Chinese Communist Party, which came to power in 1949 under Mao, initially recruited peasants and workers, but has evolved to embrace markets and entrepreneurship under “socialism with Chinese characteristics” while retaining a Leninist model of authoritarianism.
Party ranks swelled by 2.43 million in 2020, the largest annual gain since Xi became president in 2013, to 95.15 million members now, data released on Wednesday showed.
Thursday’s celebrations began with a flyby of fighter jets and helicopters at Tiananmen Square in the centre of the capital.
About 30 aircraft formed a “100” as crowds cheered under the gaze of the nation’s leaders, seated at the southern ramparts of the Forbidden City.
On Monday, Xi presided over theatrical performances at the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium in a show attended by thousands and that state media described as “epic”.
At the end, the audience rose to sing a song, Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China.
Xi said any attempt to divide the party from the Chinese people or to set the people against the party was bound to fail.
“The more than 95 million party members and the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people will never allow such a scenario to come to pass,” Xi said.
